Tag: Viber

Viber, the messaging app down by Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten, is poised to implement a controversial new strategy that will see it charge companies that run chatbots on its platform.

The conventional wisdom is to work with content companies to help bring users to messaging platforms and keep them engaged but Viber, which has struggled to keep up with rivals like WhatsApp and Line, is turning that on its head.

Starting April 1, Viber will charge chatbot operators $4,500 per month for the ability to send up to 500,000 messages to users. Those who exceed that range will be eligible to send up to one million messages per month for $6,500. The new fees are being communicated to companies that operate Viber chatbots, but Viber hinted at its new monetization plans in an email to TechCrunch.

“Bots can be published for free; however, to ensure the highest discoverability and quality of content for bots, we will be introducing a commercial commitment in the coming months. A key aim with this move is to ensure that users are presented with a steady stream of highly relevant and relatable content and a commercial commitment is one key tool for ensuring a quality experience for users,” Debbi Dougherty, head of B2B Marketing & Communications for Viber, explained.

This is a risky strategy that is likely alienate companies that operate chatbots on Viber as well a brands who bought into a bot strategy.

These costs have come out of the blue, much to the surprise of startups that spent time developing chatbots for the Viber platform.

“For an early stage startup, this isn’t going to work,” Edmundas Balčikonis, co-founder of Eddy Travels — a travel concierge service that took part in Techstars’ Toronto program — told TechCrunch by phone.

Balčikonis said his startup was attracted to the Viber platform because it provided all the necessary documentation and APIs to build a chatbot up front and in public. Having spent eight months developing its Viber bot, Eddy Travels plans to double down on its efforts with Facebook Messenger and Telegram where its bot-based service runs without charge and has seen multiples more users and engagement.

“Viber encouraged us to built the bot, but never discussed the price and there’s no price in the website documentation,” he said. “Messenger is showing way more traction for us… we didn’t get any significant engagement on Viber.”

Indeed, the strategy seems to be quite the opposite that Viber needs to take if it is to gain marketshare from the chat app leaders. WhatsApp — the world’s largest messaging service with over 1.6 billion monthly active users — doesn’t currently support chatbots, but instead of playing to its strengths, Viber is trying to squeeze additional revenue here under the cloak of “a quality user experience.”

Times are already hard though at Viber. TechCrunch spoke to six chatbot startups who develop a range of services for customers, including banks, insurance companies and media, but we found that none run any projects on Viber. Each said their desire to work on the Viber platform would diminish further if they were forced to pay for the privilege.

Rakuten’s recent 2018 financial report was released this month and it made scant reference to Viber, other than to note that the service and Rakuten Mobile, the company’s MVNO offering in Japan, had “substantially increased revenue thanks to their full-scale aggressive sales activities.”

No raw figures were provided but Rakuten’s ‘Internet Services’ division, which houses Viber and Rakuten Mobile, saw its annual revenue increase by 15.9 percent to 788.4 billion JPY. That’s around $7.1 billion and it sounds impressive, but the bulk of that revenue is from Rakuten Mobile, which has teamed up with traditional operator KDDI to take a crack at Japan’s mobile market.

What we know about Viber is that it has increased its content monetization — which included advertising, sponsored stickers and more — and that now accounts for the bulk of its revenue having surpassing income from Viber VoIP calling packages.

But, again, there’s no raw revenue data here. Rakuten also no longer provides active user information for Viber, which it said said has registered over one billion users since its creation in 2011. That’s not an informative statistic.

Things seem to be so bad that Viber doesn’t even provide an active user number to advertisers, according to a pitch deck seen by TechCrunch. The data shown includes a selection of actions that Viber claims happen per minute, including 1.2 million logins, but there’s no headline monthly active user statistic. Barcelona, which counts Rakuten as a sponsor, and Coke are among the brands that use Viber.

Now the service’s content monetization push has extended into chatbots, but the obvious risk is that companies and brands will simply go elsewhere where, frankly, they already have a larger and more captive audience.

The sad reality of today, however, is WhatsApp has grown into one of the world’s most important social services but Viber has floundered. Policies that are as short-sighted as monetizing chatbots will ensure Viber continues to be an also-ran. That surely wasn’t how Rakuten envisaged its acquisition progressing.

Messaging apps have seen a surge of popularity in recent years as people seek ways to communicate more directly than on social networks. But they also have been adding large group chat options into the mix, to give a more social experience on those messaging platforms. Now messaging app Viber is introducing the biggest group chat of them all. Read More

Techstars is bringing its global accelerator program to Asia for the first time in partnership with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten and its chat app Viber. The companies will run a three-month program in Singapore starting in July, according to a joint announcement made today. The focus will be on social messaging and, in particular, technologies and startups that align with Viber, the… Read More

This is a list of tech deals from the past half decade that were surprising because of their size, impact or seeming randomness. Some have paid off, while others (cough*Microsoft-Nokia*cough) remain head-scratchers. Read More

Popular messaging platform Viber announced an update to its mobile app today that includes an overhaul of its Chat Extensions feature, offering users access to a raft of sources of third-party content right from within the chat window.

Starting today, directly in their private chat screen, users can find and share their favorite videos from YouTube, songs from Spotify, the perfect stay from Booking.com and soon compelling original content from VICE Media. Alongside these providers, users can find other valuable content to enrich their conversations from GIPHY, Guggy and Getty Images.

One of the feature’s being highlighted by the company is the addition of the YouTube extension. Viber said YouTube videos were among the most popular form of link-sharing among its users worldwide, and now Google’s video platform is accessible directly within the chat screen. Users can search, share and even play YouTube videos without leaving their conversations.

Elsewhere, the Spotify extension allows users to access all of their music and share it in the chat app, while the VICE chat extension brings content spanning news, culture, food, fashion, music, sports, tech and more.

“Viber’s Chat Extensions platform is an exciting environment for VICE’s stories,” said Sterling Proffer, Senior Vice President, Head of Business Strategy & Development for VICE. “As we continue to aggressively grow our cross-platform distribution, it’s still context that matters most. The stories we tell are great additions to any conversation, and making that effort seamless to Viber’s 800 million users is a no-brainer.”

Viber said it would also launch local services in Russia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Philippines and elsewhere. Based on its API, selected content and service providers will be able to build their own chat extensions and create new ways for users to enrich their chats.

Viber’s new Chat Extensions will roll out gradually, becoming available globally in the coming days. Viber is a free app for iOS available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Globally popular messaging platform Viber will add a new self-destructing chat feature to its iOS app later this week (via The Verge).

The new feature, called “Secret Chats”, gives users the option of starting entire conversations that self-destruct after a certain time limit.

Users can prevent messages within the secret chat threads from being forwarded to other conversations. The feature also notifies users on iOS when someone takes a screenshot, and blocks screenshots altogether when chat threads are viewed on an Android smartphone. As with all Viber chats, the messages are end-to-end encrypted, while users can also opt to hide Secret Chats behind a PIN code.

The feature comes hot on the heels of the “Secret Messages” feature the company introduced earlier this year that lets users specify how long individual messages can be accessed for after being viewed by the recipient.

Viber has more than 800 million registered users worldwide, with particularly strong followings in parts of Asia and across eastern Europe and northern Africa.

Messaging apps can amass a lot of user data over time including everything from personal photos and videos users have shared to records of who they talk to most, where they’ve been, and what online financial services they use. Over the last few years, more and more of these messaging apps began to offer end-to-end encryption to win over users who want privacy at least as much as they… Read More